CHAMPIONS LEAGUE NEWS:JUST SIX weeks after leaving White Hart Lane, Juande Ramos took charge of his first training session as Real Madrid coach yesterday evening and immediately rang the changes.
The former Tottenham Hotspur manager was presented as the new Madrid coach on a six-month contract at the Bernabeu at 2.30pm. Barely two hours later, he was already altering arrangements at the club's Valdebebas training ground as he tries to make an impact on a club in crisis only four days before their biggest game of the season.
Ramos claimed he had "only come in for a breakfast meeting" with Madrid in the morning. At that meeting he was informed of the board's unanimous decision to sack Bernd Schuster and by early afternoon he was sitting before the press as the club's coach, insisting: "I am the man in charge of all football-related matters." That includes the appointment of Marcos Alvarez as his number two but not that of former assistant, Gus Poyet.
"For any coach working at Real Madrid is a dream and once I was asked, I was never going to say 'no'. We reached an agreement immediately: I was surprised how quick it all happened," Ramos said.
An emergency meeting had led to an emergency solution. After a three weeks of discussions, Schuster's claim that beating Barcelona is "impossible", plus a string of poor results and the political pressure mounting on the president, Ramon Calderon, accelerated Madrid's need to sack him with immediate effect. Ramos was the best coach available on the market.
A short-term contract was offered and accepted. "This way I can be sure I am happy with the club and that they are happy with me," he explained. It was the quickest way to reach an agreement, and speed was of the essence. That was just the start of a day that Ramos said had happened so fast he did not even have time to peek in the mirror to see how he looked in his new Real Madrid tracksuit.
It was just before five o'clock when he took his first session in preparation for tonight's Champions League game with Zenit St Petersburg and, more significantly, Saturday night's match with Barcelona.
In the distance, the sun was dipping behind the four towers that now occupy the old Ciudad Deportiva training ground as the squad emerged from the dressingrooms at the new one.
But rather than stroll immediately on to the pitch, the 18 players at Ramos's disposal turned right, towards pitch three. Perhaps that was what he meant when he spoke of the need to attend to Madrid's psychological state, to change their mind-set, before he could begin to analyse their football, still less decide on which players to buy - an issue about which he was tight-lipped.
By then Ramos had done two press conferences but had still to meet his players. While Alvarez put the squad through a series of stretches, Ramos shook hands with Guti and introduced himself to the two youth teamers drafted into Madrid's injury-hit squad. "I need to look at things before I make any major decisions," he said. "It's especially important to see how they are physically."
Injuries have been a major problem for Madrid this season, with only five first teamers remaining fully fit. The club's small, unbalanced squad has not helped, either. But Schuster had been on borrowed time for the past three weeks as his relationship with the squad deteriorated. The final straw came when he insisted that Madrid could not beat Barcelona following Madrid's 4-3 home defeat against Sevilla, their third in four matches.
Ramos has a good reputation in Spain. Although he is not especially well liked, lacking the charisma and warmth of other coaches, he is widely respected.
His success at Sevilla, where he pushed Real Madrid all the way in the league and won two Uefa Cups, a Copa del Rey and the European Super Cup playing fast, vibrant football counts for rather more than his travails at Tottenham - a club, the Spanish note, that sold Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane from under his nose. Guardian Service
REAL'S MANAGER MERRY-GO-ROUND
Guus Hiddink 1998-1999
John Toshack 1999
Vicente Del Bosque 1999-2003
Carlos Queiroz 2003-2004
Jose Antonio Camacho 2004
Mariano Garcia Remon 2004
Vanderlei Luxemburgo 2004-2005
Juan Ramon Lopez Caro 2005-2006
Fabio Capello 2006-2007
Bernd Schuster 2007-2008
Juande Ramos 2008-present
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